


Greatly Beloved

by carolyncaves



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Background Relationships, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hope, Light Injury Description, Lots of that, Marriage Proposal, Shotgun Wedding, Weddings, World of Ruin, even Noct who's here in spirit, like Jesus in those 'there's always three people in the bedroom' abstinence things, look it's exactly what you'd think a take on WoR written by me would be like, the gang's all here in cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-25 20:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17732165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolyncaves/pseuds/carolyncaves
Summary: It's been eight years since the darkness fell and weekends have lost all meaning, but Prompto assures them it’s a Saturday. He keeps track, he always says, because someday things are going to be different again and it’ll be pretty silly if no one knows.One thing leads to another, and Gladio ends up proposing to Sania.Gladio’s never had to worry with Sania – not really, not when it counts. There’s half a dozen moments spread over almost a decade that prove it.





	1. Let the People Be Assembled

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gladio Rarepair Week 2019.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(and let them hear)_
> 
> Day 1: Marriage of Convenience (which is a bit of a stretch, but just roll with me)

It’s been eight years since the darkness fell and weekends have lost all meaning, but Prompto assures them it’s a Saturday. He keeps track, he always says, because someday things are going to be different again and it’ll be pretty silly if no one knows.

No one ever mentions the six month stretch a couple of years ago when he stopped counting (or caring). He got through it, and Gladio will never forget the tearful smile that crossed his face when he quietly admitted he wished he still knew and Ignis cleared his throat – uncharacteristically reticent – to announce he’d kept track for him. Judging by the way Prompto takes Ignis’ hand when he tells them the day, he’s thinking about it too.

In any case, it’s a Saturday and it’s the part of the always-darkness they call ‘evening’ and for the first time in a long time everyone is together, so Iris says their group dinner is technically a party and everyone agrees.

They’re sitting at one of the long tables lined with detached benches built to furnish the communal space that replaced Lestallum’s nightlife. Over the years most of the decorative lights and fixtures in Lestallum burned out or were disconnected, but a few strings of globe lights stubbornly survive and are strung over the open-air area. Lestallum isn’t as stiflingly warm as it used to be, not by a longshot – Gladio has to wear a shirt, more often than not – but the heat put out by the Disc keeps the atmosphere from sinking into the gloomy chill that blankets most of Lucis. All in all, it’s better than it could be – better than it has been for years at a stretch – and as long as it lasts, Gladio’s going to appreciate it.

“If this is a party, we’re going to need something a lot stronger to drink.” Cindy rises from the head of the table and tugs on the back of Talcott’s collar. “You’re looking big and strong these days, Mr. Hester. Want to help a gal carry some moonshine?”

At this point it’s almost a sin to call it moonshine, or that’s Gladio’s opinion. Cindy approached alcohol distillation with the same skilled focus she brought to her mechanical work. With knowledge, precision, and a little help, she’d developed a top-shelf spirit.

“Sure,” Talcott says, scrambling off the bench with the eager energy of a fifteen-year-old who thinks he might get a sip of the stuff himself if he’s helpful. (Not likely with Ignis and Aranea and Sania here, but hey. A kid needs dreams.)

“Thank goodness for Aurum-Yeagre Alcohol,” Gladio rumbled, wrapping his arm around Sania’s waist.

“I keep telling her she doesn’t need to call it that,” Sania laments in that low, melodic voice, tracing the lines of a well-worn conversation. “I only provided a few early consultations and used samples I had lying around to breed an ideal yeast for her purposes.”

“Is that all?” Gladio answers. “Basically nothing, then.”

Sania nudges him with her elbow. “She handles all the production. She has for years.”

“You still deserve credit for your work,” Iris says from her seat on Aranea’s lap.

“You helped develop the product,” Aranea agrees. “You’re just a silent partner. That’s the best place to be.”

“Well, not the best place,” Iris says, touching her nose to Aranea’s.

“Ah, moogle-mug, you’re killing me,” Aranea mutters, but it’s with the love and respect she always shows Iris, so Gladio shoves his brotherly instincts back beneath the surface. One of these days they’ll drown for good … or at least go into hibernation where Aranea is concerned.

Iris got a crush on Aranea the first time she lay eyes on her, back in the early days of the darkness. It was just kid stuff, just Noct all over again, so Gladio listened to her babble. Five years ago, when Iris was eighteen and change, the tone of that babble changed significantly. Gladio pulled Aranea aside for a serious shovel talk. _I don’t know what you’re talking about_ , she’d said, _the kid’s my protégé, that’s all_ , and Gladio walked away thinking Iris had just gotten a little carried away with her daydreams. Thirty six hours later, Iris and Aranea were an official item. Gladio’d glared greatswords at Aranea, and she’d made the sign of the Six in return – cross her heart, she wouldn’t do anything to Iris that would make Gladio kill her. Gladio had no choice but to leave it at that. Iris was young, but in the new world it was hard odds that she (or anyone) would have the chance to get much older.

Of all the people Iris could have dated … Aranea turned out to be a good choice.

Cindy and Talcott get back with the moonshine, shot glasses are dug out from somewhere, and drinks are passed around. Gladio savors the burn in his mouth and throat, and the alcohol hits him fast and hard. Whatever tolerance he had before is long gone. Iris leaves some in the bottom of her glass and slips it under the table to Talcott. Some kind of former-baby-of-the-bunch solidarity.

Gladio takes it as an excuse to brush his lips against Sania’s cheek as a distraction. A little former-occasionally-cool-big-brother solidarity of his own.

Sania graces him with those everywhere-but-here eyes and smiles the soft, inside-joke smile that’s just for him. The smile that mean’s Gladio’s safe. Maybe it’s the buzz, but Gladio can’t help but kiss it.

“I know it’s been said, but that’s really excellent stuff,” Aranea says. “It’s a crime you’re not millionaires.”

“That’s a mighty fine might’ve-been,” Cindy says.

“In the old world Sania would already be a millionaire because of Gladio,” Iris says.

“And Gladio would be a millionaire all over again thanks to Sania’s talent for R&D,” Aranea maintains.

“Wait,” Prompto says. “They’re not married. Unless I missed it. Are they?!”

“No,” Gladio and Sania say in unison, while Ignis replies, “Not to my knowledge.”

“Well, when are you gonna take care of that?” Aranea says. “How’s Sania going to claim your Crownsguard pension if you get iced by a daemon out there?”

Sania chuckles, but Gladio just looks at her – her puffy hair and her tortoise-shell glasses and her stoic face. _Married_. He can’t believe it never occurred to him. Maybe because nothing seems real anymore, with the oppressive always-night and the horror-movie daemons and the grueling, never-ending wait. But now that the idea’s in his head, it’s all he can think about. “She’s right.”

“Gladio, at this point the Crownsguard pension is approximately two corn chips,” Sania says, bemused.

“First of all, no it's fuckin’ not, we take care of _everybody_ and if something ever happens to me whoever steps up next had damn better do the same.” Gladio reigns himself in. “Second of all … marry me.”

The whole table pauses. Sania looks up at him. Nobody breathes.

("I mean, we'd definitely take care of Sania whether you guys were literally married or not," Prompto says quietly.

"Which isn't to say the infamous Redcap needs a great deal of taking care of," Ignis says.

"Oh my Gods,” Iris hisses, “would you shut up so I can hear this?”)

“Are you serious?” Sania asks. She’s squinting intently at Gladio, wearing the face that means she’s trying to decide if it’s worth telling him he’s being an idiot.

Gladio shoves the bench back a little – jostling Iris and Aranea – so he can kneel. He takes Sania’s hands in his. “Marry me,” he says again.

Sania’s eyebrows lift. “You _are_ serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

Sania’s eyes rove over his face – tracing every angle, every scar. Whatever equation she’s running behind those brown eyes, Gladio hopes he’s equal.

“All right,” Sania says. “When?”

He shouldn’t have worried. Gladio’s never had to worry with Sania – not really, not when it counts. There’s a dozen moments spread over almost a decade that prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a frame story, see?


	2. The Glory of This Latter House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(shall be greater than the former)_
> 
> Day 2: Home & "Stay."

It’s been six years since the darkness fell, and Sania’s apartment in Lestallum is a small one-bedroom thing which she maintains with exacting care. There are few balms in this new world, and Sania’s most precious is a quiet space of her own. Well, ‘quiet’ apart from the occasional booming laugh, and ‘her own’ apart from Gladio, who has the run of the place, but those are minor distinctions.

It’s a little cluttered – Gladio pokes fun, but Sania knows where everything is. She can put her hand on any book or page of notes or specimen, if she has adequate time to look for it. It has a wide bed with the most comfortable mattress she could claim in one corner, made up with sheets and a bedspread and a few throw pillows. A nightstand and dresser that appear to match. A sofa without mold or holes. Nothing that looks like the apocalypse. It’s as normal a home as Sania can put together – aside from the handful of live specimens she keeps close to hand.

No frogs anymore – the last one died over a year ago. Gladio held her hand that day, sat beside her in the quiet as she adjusted to a world without them. Perhaps they weren’t extinct, she told herself. Perhaps they lived on in the wild, in the dark, (improbable), or their larvae did, lying dormant, (more plausible), and perhaps one day the sun would shine on a red slough frog again.

“You caught that one for me,” she said. “You and Ignis and Prompto and Noct.”

“I know,” he replied, in a way that suggested he’d already been thinking about it. The ghost of a frog, and the ghost of a prince.

That was then. Now, Sania sits cross-legged on her bed with a textual analysis of the Cosmogony open in her lap. Gladio just returned from a dangerous trip to Hammerhead, and Sania is, as always, dangerously glad to see him. He comes in and smiles at her, kisses her on the forehead and the lips, and says he’s going to run his dirty things over to the apartment he ostensibly shares with Prompto (even though neither of them have spent a night there in years). The question that’s been growing in the back of Sania’s mind for a long time is suddenly in her mouth. “Why won’t you move in here with me?”

They share a surprised silence. Gladio looks at her, and at the ceiling, and at her again. Eventually Sania has no choice but to elaborate.

“You’ve lived here in practical terms for a long while. Almost ten months ago I told you I’d be happy for you to move in, and you indicated you agreed. But you haven’t.” Sania pushes her glasses up her nose, a shamelessly nervous gesture. “Is there a reason?”

“I, uh …” Gladio shifts, as though he’s pinned in place by her question. “Yeah. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Will you give it some thought?” Sania requests. “For me.”

Gladio nods slowly. His eyes flick away, looking anywhere but her. “All right.”

She tries to keep reading as Gladio drifts around the apartment, half-heartedly pouring himself a glass of water and washing the dishes she left in the sink – but she can’t focus on the words anymore. She puts the book on the nightstand and removes her glasses, letting the world lose a little focus while she rubs her eyes.

Gladio rarely puts his mind to his heart without a firm influence from an outside force, but once he does it generally doesn’t take him very long to find what he’s looking for. After ten minutes, he comes over – and instead of sitting beside her, he sinks down on the floor in front of her where she’s perched near the edge of the low-framed bed.

She puts her glasses back on and turns to face him. When she dangles a leg over the side, Gladio carefully wraps a hand around her pajamaed calf.

“It’s Noct,” he says.

Naturally. With Gladio, everything comes back to Noctis.

“I feel like … I can’t,” Gladio continues. “I can’t bring my things in here and put my clothes in your closet and live here for real. Forever. Because if I’m alive when he comes back, he’s gonna call, and I’m gonna answer.”

That makes sense. It’s perfectly reasonable. Gladio has always been forthright that his oath to Noct supersedes any relationship he has with Sania, and she has always understood. Noctis occupies a hallowed place in the heart of Gladio’s being that Sania could never hope to reach. Would never want to, really. Gladio’s devotion is one of the things she admires most about him.

It’s irrational, a paradox. She loves him for the strength and depth of his commitment, to Noctis and the world, but it smarts to know that Gladio is by leaps and bounds the most precious person on Eos to Sania and that will never be the same in reverse.

“All right,” Sania says, and she makes herself give Gladio a ghost of a smile. If Gladio needs to maintain a token separation in their personal affairs to feel comfortable, Sania doesn’t see the use in making him feel bad about it. He _is_ her most beloved person, and she wants however much of him he can offer.

“All right,” Gladio echoes. He stands in slow motion and retrieves his bag where he abandoned it in the middle of the floor. “Like I said, I’ll run this over and take a quick shower. Be back in an hour.”

Sania nods.

Still, Gladio hovers. “Look, I’m really sorry. If I don’t come back from it … you’d be stuck sitting here alone with a pile of my dumb stuff. I’d be running off and leaving a mess behind for you to deal with.” He runs a hand through his hair – he wears it longer every year, and it suits him very fine. “Even more than I already am. I don’t want to do that to you. So I can’t ask you to make room for me. Not in your dresser, and not … you know?” Gladio steels himself for a moment, then turns to go.

Sania has a strong, sickening vision of Gladio leaving and never coming back and that being the end of them. All his belongings in another place, someone else’s responsibility. It would be Prompto or Ignis if they survive Gladio, or Iris if they don’t. Either way, Sania will be nobody, have no claim to his life or his memory. The only impression of their relationship on the strata of this world is Gladio’s person in her apartment. Without him, no trace of _them_ would remain.

“Wait,” Sania says. “Stay.”

“What?”

“Stay, and put your clothes in the closet.” Sania toys with the sheets. “You belong to him, but there’s no reason your clothes can’t belong to me. There’s no reason this can’t be your home.”

Gladio looks more adrift than a man his size has any right to, duffel bag clutched in both hands. “You mean …”

“I mean I want you to live here anyway, if you’d like. I understand you have a duty to him. If the rest of you is mine … I’ll be satisfied with that. I can make room for you, whatever happens. I … I _want_ you to leave a mark on me.”

Before Sania has time to wonder if she regrets saying that, Gladio drops his bag and is across the room in two giant strides. He pulls her up off the bed and into his arms – impossibly big and warm and strong, the safest place in the world. “Yeah, okay. Yeah. So do I.”

Sania squeezes him tight in return. She intends to keep him there, as long as she can. “Don’t I always tell you to let me do the thinking?”

He growls possessively. “Don’t even start.”


	3. Nation Shall Not Lift Up a Sword Against Nation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(neither shall they learn war any more)_
> 
> Day 3: Aftermath (+ a hint of Bed Sharing)

It’s been four years since the darkness fell, and the daemons have finally, _maybe_ stopped getting worse. For a long time everyone wondered if they’d just keep on growing bigger and nastier and more resistant to light until it became impossible to hold them off anymore. Gladio breathed a sigh of relief when Sania told him the concentration of Scourge seemed to be holding steady.

The threshold it’s settled at – ‘the point at which the infection of the planet has reached equilibrium’, Sania calls it – is pretty damn bad, though.

Gladio stumbles a little on the threshold of Sania’s apartment, but he keeps his feet under him. They’re close, so close, but he’s not going to make Sania drag him the last stretch if he can help it.

He’s been here a few dozen times. Often enough that it doesn’t feel like a stranger’s place anymore, but not for him to have really made himself at home. Not yet, at least. Of course, usually when he staggers through this door he’s dizzy with lust, not blood loss.

“You should lie down on the couch,” Sania says as she limps over to the kitchen to rummage for first aid supplies. The days of healing potions are so far behind them they feel like a half-remembered dream. Instead of the couch, Gladio sinks shakily into one of her kitchen chairs. It’s wood, easy to wipe clean. He’s not about to ruin Sania’s upholstery over a couple of paper cuts.

Sania’s face pinches for a microsecond when she turns around and sees him, but then she just rolls her eyes. “I hardly think you have to prove yourself for the sake of my furniture. You beheaded a Ronin earlier.”

“You set it up for me, Redcap.”

“Not very well, it seems.” Sania frowns closely at the worst of his injuries – a deep slash across his forearm and abs. The Ronin’s attempt to take Gladio with it.

“It’s not too serious,” Gladio says. “Nothing a handful of stitches won’t fix.”

“You say that as though a handful of stitches are going to be a walk in the park for either of us,” Sania replies, but she’s already sifting through the first aid kit for the things she needs.

Sania’s picked up a solid familiarity with field medicine, just like everyone with even a scrap of biological knowledge who survived that first year. Gladio bears the marks of her stitches on his body already (along with a half dozen other people’s, some sloppier than others), and he doesn’t hate the thought of adding a few more. She gets to work. Even though she was fighting for her life an hour ago, hers and Gladio’s and the two other hunters in their party, her hands are slow and certain. Just like always.

She’s even better at fighting than patching people up. That was such a revelation, the first time he saw it. The first time she let him. He was in the wilderness when he glimpsed a whirlwind, powerful murderous movement. Then she met his eyes under the brim of that red cap and it was _her_. His lover. He’d never realized it was possible to be that suddenly, painfully aroused in the middle of a life-and-death fight. Gladio’s mind’s eye drifts to Sania in combat – ferocious strikes, fine, strong hands on her weapon. Then it’s fine, strong hands on his skin …

“Gladio,” Sania says. “Try to stay awake for me. I’d prefer to avoid embarrassing myself trying to carry you over to the bed.”

“You won’t have any trouble getting me in bed,” Gladio counters instantly.

Sania huffs. “You don’t have enough blood left for that, champ.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“No,” Sania says firmly, but she’s smiling. “Now come on, you can lean on me.”

“Not yet.” Gladio stills her with both hands. “You got banged up, too.”

“It’s superficial. I’ll put on a bandage once you’re settled.”

“Half your face is covered in blood like you tumbled out of a low-budget slice-and-dice flick.”

“It’s stopped now,” she says, before running her fingers across her hairline to confirm it. “You’re familiar with head wounds.”

“C’mon,” Gladio presses.

Sania sighs and says, “You really ought to lie down,” but she’s already turning to wet a cloth in the sink, so Gladio knows he’s won.

“Won’t take long,” Gladio says in consolation. He leans down – ouch, damn – and spins the first aid kit around to face him. She’s right that it’s really not that bad – a couple of butterfly things and a patch of gauze oughta do it.

Sania returns with the cloth. “Just a cursory treatment.”

“Right,” Gladio says, but he hooks an arm around her waist and eases her in to sit side-saddle on his lap.

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, leaning on him close, careful to avoid his newly-stitched sword wound.

Gladio gently wipes the blood off her face. “You think I’m hot, though, right?”

Sania snorts. “I think you’re delirious. Hurry up so you can lie down.”

He doesn’t, and she doesn’t make him. And when he finishes patching her up and shambles slowly over to her bed and lets her tuck him in and drops right off to sleep, he doesn’t even notice it’s the first time they’re sharing a bed with each other without having sex first.

When Gladio realizes a couple of days later, he feels weird and warm all over. It’s good, though.


	4. Truth Shall Spring Out of the Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(and righteousness shall look down from heaven)_
> 
> Day 4: Drunk + "I was just thinking about you" + Stargazing (in a way). Three whole prompts!

It’s been three years since the darkness fell, and the havens are fading. The hunters first noticed it, _really_ noticed it, a few months ago, and now it’s undeniable. Sania’s taken measurements, and at the rate the light they give off is decaying, she estimates the runes will go completely dark in about twenty-six weeks. It’s possible their protective power will fail sooner. There isn’t enough information left about the Oracles’ magic to make even a crude prediction.

But they still ward off daemons for now, and Sania has no trouble finding the dwindling glow of the nearest haven in the deepness of the dark. She makes her way toward it, and she’s so focused on guarding herself from the potential dangers all around it that she doesn’t notice the figure atop it until she’s almost there.

Everyone who travels the world these days understands that safe spaces have to be shared, and even the most belligerent or isolated –

It’s Gladio, she realizes, and an entire array of emotions bloom simultaneously in her chest.

“Gladio?” she calls out, to reassure herself she isn’t delusional and to alert him that she’s there.

There’s a pause. “Sania?” Gladio rises.

Sania mounts the haven at an easy pace. Gladio keeps his hands on the hilt of his sword until she steps inside the runes. It’s not that there’s any real reason for him to believe she’s a daemon or a trick, but the long night keeps revealing new surprises. It makes it hard to trust anything. Gladio relaxes and reclaims his seat when it’s clear the runes aren’t affecting her, and Sania sits down beside him on the edge of the haven.

“Believe it or not, I was just thinking about you,” he says. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I’m monitoring the havens,” Sania replies. Everyone is concerned their collapse might accelerate. No one’s sure what to do after they’re gone. Every few weeks, Sania makes the rounds. Collecting additional data. She supposes she’ll continue measuring the world right up until it (or she) ceases to be. That’s what a scientist does, after all. Observes what is, no matter how bleak the trajectory.

Gladio chuckles. “Glad to know you’re the one keeping the lights on for us.”

She isn’t, not even close, but Gladio knows that. She makes herself smile and say, “Of course.”

Then he’s taking her hand, wrapping it in his large, calloused own. Sania looks up to find Gladio’s gaze fixed on the murky blackness of the sky. She parts her lips to ask him what he’s doing, but he beats her out the gate.

“Before, the stars were always washed out by the runelight. And the firelight, back when you could light a fire without attracting more daemons that you’d repel. I think now we’d finally be able to see them.”

Sania looks at the features of his upturned face instead of the never-changing void that blankets them. “It’s too bad they’re gone.”

“They’re not gone,” he says. Blunt, matter-of-fact. “They’re up there. We just can’t see them right now. If we wait, and survive … If we fight. They’ll come back one day.”

The stars. Noctis. Light itself.

Sania has spent her career, her entire adult life, looking at the ground and the organisms that live there. Gladio always reminds her to look up.

Whenever she does … there he is.

Sania drags her eyes away from him so she can reach into her pack and retrieve her flask. “Would you like to try some of Cindy’s latest iteration? I haven’t sampled it yet myself, but I’ve been told this may be the final formulation.”

“Really?” Gladio says. “Damn, I feel like I haven’t had a good drink in years.”

“Here’s hoping,” she replies, passing the flask into his calloused fingers. It’s only been five months, but she feels like she hasn’t had those hands on her in years either. Every time feels like the last time. A series of one-night stands, a temporary surrender to a lasting desire. It’s her own doing as much as his. It would be foolish (anguished, masochistic) to go further, here at the end of the world, and Gladio is no more a fool than Sania.

But it’s been five months, and she wants him. Not just once in a while.

He passes the flask back to her, and she takes a long pull. It’s as good as Cindy promised, the warm burn of a good spirit instead of the chemical sear produced by some of the early attempts. She gives her mouth and throat a moment to adjust and then takes another. There’s an idea spiraling open in her head. It hasn’t quite fallen into place, but Sania think she could use the courage.

The alcohol is strong, too, which she realizes as it rushes right to her head. Cindy didn’t mention the proof …

Gladio clears his throat. “Since you’re here, we could zip the sleeping bags together tonight,” he suggests, taking the flask from her offering hand. “Only if you want,” he hurries to add.

“I want,” Sania says. She scoots closer to him so she’s flush against his side and rests her hand on his thigh. It’s not hot and heavy – they’ll eat first, and chat, like they always do. She just likes touching him. He’s a furnace beside her in the chilly gloom.

The last pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

Sania nudges him with her elbow. “You know, we don’t have to wait until we run into each other by accident to shoot the breeze. We don’t have to disappear into our respective sunsets every time we go for a roll in the hay. We can be together if we want to be.”

Gladio grows tense next to her. “Together like …”

“Like your sister and Aranea.”

“Can you do me a favor and not talk about my sister and the woman twice her age she’s dating as aggressively and _publicly_ as possible?”

“Sorry,” Sania says around a half-swallowed laugh. She’s personally enjoyed watching Iris turn Aranea’s reputation for being domineering and heartless inside-out. “Aranea’s not twice her age, though.”

“She was when they met,” Gladio gripes.

That Sania has to concede, so she switches tacks. “Together like Ignis and Prompto, then.”

“Iggy and Prompto aren’t together,” Gladio says instantly.

Sania just looks at him.

“If you hint at it in front of them, they both get really antsy,” Gladio revises. “I honestly don’t know if they think they’re keeping it subtle or if they’re just …”

“In incredibly deep denial,” Sania suggests. Prompto and Ignis are more of a couple than some married people.

“Yeah,” Gladio says.

“Well then, we could be together like … hmm …” Sania searches for an appropriate analogue.

“Like us,” Glaido says. “How about we be together like us?”

Sania looks up at him and gets startled. He’s gazing down at her already, and there’s something arresting in those amber eyes. “Is that … You mean you want to?”

“Definitely,” Gladio replies. Then he kisses her beneath the stolen light of a million shrouded stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day, fam. Treat yo self. Treat yo SO. Friends, loved ones, etc and so forth.


	5. Mercy and Truth Are Met Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(righteousness and peace have kissed each other)_
> 
> Day 5: eeeee I mean, it's kind of "I told you not to fall in love with me" but only like in spirit. This one has the weakest connection to the prompts.

It’s been almost a year since the darkness fell, and this is the first time Gladio’s seen her.

His rule is to presume everyone dead until he gets confirmation they're not. Then he can add them to the hopefully-alive-out-in-the-darkness list until he hears otherwise. But so many people died in the first waves of the calamity – when the daemons stopped going away, when the generators failed the first and second times. They’d gotten that shit worked out, shored up, double-redundant, but he knows people died all over Lucis in those hours without the lights. Regular people couldn’t defend themselves against daemons. Regular people shouldn’t’ve had to.

Maybe that’s why he’s surprised to see her, sitting in the crowd on the porch of the hunters’ shelter at Meldacio, sipping a cup of soup from the communal kitchen like she belongs there. He thought she was a regular person – extraordinary, sure, a world-class intellect, but regular. Maybe someone protected her, figured the world probably needed some serious brains more than ever.

She spots him seconds after he sees her, brown eyes locking on his between clusters of hunters and fighters and survivors. He moves through the crowd until he reaches her, and she offers him the chair at her side, so he takes it. Her eyes rove over him, and she smiles genuinely – but when she’s finished, a hunted numbness takes its place. The resting expression of everyone still alive in the dark. Her face is thinner than it used to be. That’s common, too, a reflection of the thinning reserves (and a reminder that the infrastructure to replace them is still frighteningly incomplete).

The hands wrapped around her cup are scraped and battered and calloused. They bear the scars of a hundred fights, old and new. Maybe Gladio was wrong about Sania being regular.

“Didn’t know you were still around,” Gladio says. “I mean …”

“I know,” Sania says. “When I heard you were in Lestallum with your friends, I was … glad.”

“I’m glad, too,” Gladio says, and suddenly he wants to cry more badly than he has since Noct disappeared. He swallows it by saying, “Why didn’t you come visit?”, a question he immediately regrets.

“I’m studying a protrusion of dark material near the Vesperpool that may be related to the increased concentration of Scourge plasmodium in the atmosphere,” Sania says. “And … well, it would be a little desperate, wouldn’t it? Traveling all that way to see a one-night stand.” Her hand shifts toward him on the surface of the worn table, and Gladio reaches out and grabs it.

“Nah,” he says, squeezing her probably too tight. “No way. It’s great to see you.”

She squeezes back just as hard. “Likewise.”

They talk for hours after that. A trickle of hunters come by to clap Gladio on the shoulder and say hello, and one of them buys Sania another round of soup – “thanks again to the Redcap”, he says, and when Gladio asks about it Sania just smiles mysteriously – and neither Gladio nor Sania invite anyone else to sit down or make any move to leave.

Eventually the lady who runs the kitchen starts closing up for the night, and reluctantly Gladio rises. Sania does the same.

“I’m staying in one of the caravans,” Gladio says. And even though he shouldn’t, even though every breath everyone draws was uncertain, even though getting further entangled with someone he could easily come to care about is an idiotic thing to do (and it would be easy, it would be effortless, it might even be too late), Gladio continues. “Do you want to join me? Or, maybe …”

“Yes,” Sania says – and ten minutes later he’s kissing her against the inside of the door to the caravan.

Twenty minutes later, they’re as close as two people can be and Gladio feels more alive and human than he thought he ever would again.


	6. I Will Set a Sign Among Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(and in this place will I give peace)_
> 
> Day 6: Fake Dating (in a sense)

It’s six months before the darkness falls when Gladio meets Sania for the first time in Hammerhead.

It’s a five-minute conversation, ten tops, but she’s blindingly sharp and he can’t get her out of his head.

Two weeks later, when he sees her at Coernix, he almost drops his cola. “Go on and introduce yourself,” he tells Noct, almost without consciously making the choice, because he really wants a a reason to talk to her again. It works, because they start up an acquaintance with her, but it also leaves something to be desired, because she keeps sending Noct on field trips and every time Gladio and Sania only exchange about ten words between them.

They keep looking for damn frogs, and Gladio keeps losing sleep.

-

“Again?” Noctis asks tiredly, about the fourth time they ran into her.

“It’s important stuff,” Gladio says.

Noct looks at him flatly. Then he closes his eyes and … softens. “Yeah, guess it is. Okay, what does she want this time?”

-

The four of them are sharing a plate of fries at yet another Crow’s Nest when Gladio spots her out the window. “Hey, there’s Sania. Maybe we should see if …”

“You know running an errand for her doesn’t count as a date.”

Gladio snaps his attention to Noct. “Huh?”

Noct looks a little surprised himself, but he answers. “Can you please just ask her out so we can stop looking for frogs?”

Ignis and Prompto are staring at Noct like he has three heads. Gladio might’ve been too if he wasn’t busy replaying every conversation he’s ever had with Sania in his head. And yeah, maybe … maybe he’s been extremely into her the whole damn time. Six. “Look, we’re out here doing a job, I don’t have time to …”

“Gladio,” Noct says. He picks at a fry like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “You should go on a date with her. Really. It’s fine.”

Gladio opens his mouth to argue. Then he doesn’t. Noct is saying … it’s okay with him. There are things they have to give up for Noct, no matter how much he hates it, but he’s telling Gladio this isn’t one of them.

“All right,” Gladio says. “I’ll ask her.”

Noct eats the fry and nods.

“Dude,” Prompto says, “are you telling me the only reason we’ve been crawling around in the mud with the bugs all this time is because Gladio’s got a crush?”

“You got a problem with that?” Gladio says.

“Uh, yes!!”

Ignis hesitates for a microsecond, so short no one but Gladio would notice, before putting his hand on Prompto's shoulder. “I’m sure the scientific value of the samples we’ve collected is incalculable.”

-

Gladio goes and asks her out, and Sania says yes, and when she asks him what brought this on he stupidly recounts the conversation while they split a milkshake at the same Kenny Crow three hours later (which she spikes with whisky from a flask she keeps at her hip, _a flask she keeps at her hip_ , while the owner isn’t looking). Sania laughs, and it’s one of the most electrifying sounds Gladio has ever heard. Gladio isn’t dumb, but Sania is an honest-to-gods genius – he knew it the first second she opened her mouth. Making her laugh, surprising her, feels incredible. It’s a hit straight to the reward center of his brain.

Gladio’s not humble. He knows what he has to offer in return. They spend that night together in the motel, and another a few weeks later in Lestallum.

Then Gladio goes to Altissia, so he puts that liaison in the ‘in another life’ folder. He has a job to do.

 -

It sure as hell feels like another life, he thinks one day, many years later.


	7. So Shall Your Seed and Your Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(remain forever)_
> 
> Day 7: Devotion

It’s been eight years since the darkness fell, and Sania’s agreed to marry him.

“When?” she asks, as casually as if she’s talking about when they’re going to eat dinner.

“Will I get to be a bridesmaid?” Iris beams. “How are we going to find dresses and flowers? We'll have to …”

“Let's do it right now,” Gladio says as he climbs to his feet.

“Right this second?” Sania smiles.

“Ideally you're only going to do this once, muscle head,” Aranea says. “You should do it right.”

“You oughta have a real celebration,” Cindy says. “It’d be foolish to pass up a good reason to hold a party in these dark days.”

“We're at a party,” Gladio reminds them. “Everyone's here. I don't want to wait another second.”

He puts his hand out, and Sania takes it as she rises to join him. “You're very emotional, Gladio. Impulsive, rash …”

“… romantic,” Gladio finishes. “So are you.”

“That’s true,” Sania concedes. “‘Right now’ it is.”

Everyone else starts standing up too as they realize a wedding is actually about to happen.

“Who's gonna officiate?” Cindy asks.

“Aranea,” Prompto suggests.

“I'm not going to be responsible for anyone’s lifelong happiness. – _Except yours, kitten._ – Anyway, Ignis should do it.”

Ignis shakes his head. “I'm not even remotely qualified.”

“And he's gotta be a groomsman,” Gladio adds.

“It needs to be someone official,” Talcott says.

Prompto perks up. “How about Cor?”

Then they're gallivanting through the streets of Lestallum. Iris is flouncing around like she's 15 again and coming out of her skin with excitement. Aranea punches Gladio _very_ hard on the shoulder a couple of times. He takes it as the highest congratulations. Prompto is practically dragging Ignis by the hand, talking a mile a minute in a way he hasn’t in a while (not in Gladio’s hearing, anyway). Talcott is asking Cindy a million questions about weddings and marriages in the old days – he always does that, always wants to know what he’s missing, at this point it breaks Gladio’s heart about ten percent less than it used to – and Cindy’s doing a fantastic job keeping up.

A few people poke their heads out their windows to see what all the noise is about, and Iris gleefully shouts up that her brother’s getting married.

They crash like the tide against the door of the very small, very private apartment Cor shares with himself. If he's at all dismayed to find a boisterous crowd on his doorstep, he doesn't show it – and when he learns why they’re there he rolls his eyes in that way that means they're being dumb in a way he's fond of. He agrees to conduct the ceremony, and then he looks Gladio over from head to toe and says, “You’re not going to marry the woman you love looking like that, are you?”

This sends the party careening in all directions. Ignis and Prompto escort Gladio back to their apartment, and Iris swings by Gladio and Sania’s place just long enough to grab Gladio’s Kingsglaive uniform. It fits right – thank goodness – so Prompto does up his buttons with almost-trembling hands and Ignis carefully straightens his collar and Iris descends on his hair with some kind of homemade product she apparently uses.

When they’re done, Gladio looks in the mirror, and for the first time in a while he doesn’t just see a fighter or a survivor. He sees a Crownsguard, a Shield, a groom. Iris skips off to wherever Cindy and Aranea have taken Sania, and it’s just the three of them.

Ignis puts one hand on his shoulder and the other on his arm. “Congratulations, Gladiolus. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Gladio says, a little gruffly. He pulls Ignis into a hug. “Glad you’re here to see it.”

“Figuratively,” Prompto snorts softly. He nudges in and Gladio wraps an arm tight around him. Group hug.

“You too, Prompto,” Gladio says, because Prompto the kind of guy who needs to hear it.

“Yeah,” Prompto says, squeezing him in return.

Maybe you two will be next, Gladio doesn’t say. It’s more likely Prompto and Ignis will take another eight years to get to wedding bells. They’re running the slow-and-steady race.

“Noctis would want to be here with you as well,” Ignis says.

That puts a lump in Gladio’s throat, so he buries his face in Ignis’ shoulder.

“Yeah,” Prompto adds. “He’d be thrilled for you. And he’d love Sania, I mean, who wouldn’t? You’re perfect together.”

“We’ll just have to tell him all about it when he gets back,” Gladio growls.

“Right.”

“Indeed.”

They group-hug for a little while longer, and then Gladio lets go and slaps them both on the shoulder and goes to wash his face. He’s not gonna look like he’s been weeping at his own damn wedding.

When he gets back, Ignis has produced an actual honest-to-Eos bottle of scotch whiskey, the good stuff from before, and Prompto’s popping ice cubes out of a tray. They sit at Ignis and Prompto’s kitchen table and share a drink, just the three of them. It’s half an abbreviated bachelor’s party, half a long-overdue chat between three old friends who haven’t caught up in a while. Before long, Gladio feels warm and relaxed and content. At peace with everything.

Then Iris knocks on the door to tell them everyone’s ready, and Gladio’s heart is hammering against his ribcage. Prompto laughs at whatever face he must be making, and Gladio drains his glass.

Iris leads them back to the promenade, where someone’s shoved the banquet tables to the sides to make an aisle. People are standing around, people who live in Lestallum, people Gladio barely knows except in passing. They let up a smattering of applause when he arrives, and they’re smiling and talking happily with each other. Cindy was right on the money about having a celebration.

Iris deposits Gladio at the top of the steps with Cor and drags Ignis and Prompto off with her. Cor surveys Gladio’s attire and nods in approval. “Much better.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And congratulations. You both deserve all the happiness you find with each other.”

Gladio has to duck his head for a minute. He can’t be tearing up again already.

It’s not long before a hush goes over the haphazard gathering. Iris and Talcott come around one of the buildings at the bottom of the promenade, arm in arm. Iris has a few flowers woven into her hair, and a few more in her hands. Talcott’s carrying something small in his hands. A seed, it’ll be. Traditionally it would be for an ash or a yew, but they’re probably using whatever they could find the fastest. Gladio doesn’t care. The trees don’t grow anyway, anymore. It’s the symbolism that counts. Every dozen paces, Iris lets a flower fall to the cobblestones – and Gladio can’t see them that well, she’s too far away, but they look pretty damn real.

“Monica donated some materials from her private collection,” Cor says sotto-voce. “She asked me to say she’s thrilled for you.”

Monica’s ‘private collection’ is a bunch of flowers in containers and baskets that she’s crammed into her apartment and takes almost religious care of. Prompto and Cindy are rounding the corner, and Cindy has flowers in her hair as well, and there’s one pinned to Prompto’s shirt and another in Talcott’s buttonhole, and if Gladio extrapolates he can tell Monica gave them just about everything that was blooming. Gladio finds Monica next to Dave in the audience, and when she looks his way he gives her a low bow.

She just waves back, a pleasant smile on her face.

Ignis and Aranea are next, and then nobody follows as the wedding party makes their way up the promenade and arranges themselves at the top of the steps. Talcott takes a place beside Cor, and Gladio’s friends assume their posts beside him. Iris gives him a huge hug before taking her place with the ladies standing opposite.

Then every single person present turns their attention to the other end of the aisle.

Sania’s there, and she’s glowing. They found a dress – not a white one, but Gladio couldn’t care less because this one’s perfect. It’s an orangey-pink, or maybe a pinkish-orange. Whatever it is, it suits her. It flares out past her waist and falls just past her knees. It’s gorgeous. She’s got a whole crown of flowers in her hair, and _she’s_ gorgeous, and she’s looking right at him with wide, wonderous eyes. Amazed and amazing.

When she reaches them, reaches _him_ , she takes his hand. “You look incredible, Gladio,” she says.

“ _You_ look incredible.” Gladio wants to say something else, at least he thinks he does, but every word he’s ever known has flown out of his head and all he can do is look at her.

She opens her mouth and shuts it without speaking, so maybe she’s in the same boat.

Cor makes a sound that’s definitely a cough trying to disguise a chuckle. “Before we get started, I forgot to ask … are you taking his name?”

Gladio and Sania’s hands both clench. Gladio is half panicked and half relieved he’s not the only one who hasn’t given it even the slightest thought.

“Nah,” Iris says easily. “Sania has to stay Yeagre, you know, for her family’s reputation and her publishing in science journals and the branding for the moonshine.”

“Amicitia is an ancient and important name,” Cor says, but a smile is threatening to emerge on his face.

“Yeah, but Aranea’s going to take it when we get married, so Gladio and Sania don’t have to worry about that.”

Aranea goes as red as a tomato and she covers her face with one hand – but she slowly takes Iris’ with the other.

Cor looks back at Gladio and Sania, and they nod in confirmation.

“All right, then. Let’s get started.” Cor clears his throat and switches to his addressing-the-troops voice.

Cor speaks the most important parts of the traditional ceremony. Neither Gladio nor Sania really had time to come up with their own vows, and the old words pretty much say everything that needs to be said. When prompted, they each say, “I do.”

Then Cor takes the seed from Talcott’s hands and says, “Wherever and whatever fate brings you, may the roots of your union grow deep, and may the shade you cast stretch far into the future.” He places the seed in Gladio cupped, calloused palm. Sania lays her hand overtop it. They painted her nails to match the dress. They’re only a little smudged.

Gladio looks higher, into her eyes. He knows there’s a ridiculous smile on his face, but he can’t help it. Sania’s gaze is a little bright and a lot delighted.

“By the power vested in me by nobody – well, by the two of you when you asked me to do this – I pronounce you married. You may now kiss one another as a sign of your enduring devotion.”

Sania grips his hand in hers, the seed pressed between their palms. Gladio cups his other hand at the back of Sania’s neck. They do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(and on earth peace, goodwill toward men)_

**Author's Note:**

> I probably owe substantial elements of chapters 1 and 7 to [this cute art](https://carolyncaves.tumblr.com/post/181334013761/agi92-ffxv-rarepair-week-july-5th-dancing). I owe the whole fic to Gladio Rarepair Week and the prompts (I didn’t always follow them in letter, but kind of the vibe of each day’s prompts taken together absolutely gave me the arc of this fic). ~~Also I did definitely put the whole tree/seed segment into the wedding just so I could use that line as the last chapter title without it implying something else and being kinda weird. The seed is purely metaphorical, for real. Unless ofc you’re personally tickled by the alternative.~~
> 
> Self fact check related to a comment: The lyrics to Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem mvmt VI, where I got the chapter titles, are not taken from Revelations. They're from all over the Bible, mostly Isaiah and Psalms. Either my high school chorus teacher lied to me or I just completely invented that "fact" out of whole cloth haha.
> 
> Gigantic thanks to everyone for reading, kudoing, and commenting. For real, y'all are amazing. You can always find me on tumblr [@carolyncaves](https://carolyncaves.tumblr.com/).


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